1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a decision support system, and in particular, a closed loop medical decision support system for generating real-time treatment options having statistical outcome data.
2. Description of Related Art
A great number of people depend on and receive healthcare services from clinicians. Clinicians base their treatment plans mainly on retrospective analysis and successful past experiences. For example, a particular doctor may have his own opinion of a preferred drug for use on a specific condition based on his observation of how the drug had performed on his past patients with the same condition. Such a decision-making process for treatment is therefore based on a relatively small pool of information which focuses on a single doctor""s personal preferences and therefore lacks any real significance or validity. Similarly, when hospitals and clinics base their treatment choices on past successful experiences, although each hospital or clinic may provide a somewhat larger database of past information, such information is still localized and skewed for that particular location.
Making a medical decision as to treatment based on only an individual""s or a hospital""s past successful experiences can be risky. An ill-advised or inappropriate decision leads to uncured and potentially more seriously ill patients, more disabilities and complications, higher costs of care, and lower confidence in the health care industry. However, physicians often lack the time to conduct detailed research on treatment options for every condition, especially for complicated conditions and when an emergency arises demanding immediate attention.
Accordingly, an efficient and accurate system for providing a clinician or physician with real-time detailed information on treatment options and respective outcome measurements at the point of care for a particular condition, is highly desirable.
The present invention is directed to a method of providing the optimal current treatment suggestions for a particular condition. In one aspect of the present invention, a method of generating and providing treatment options and outcome analyses over a communication network is provided comprising the steps of: filtering data from a plurality of remote databases and a local database; compiling said data in a server; providing the server with a plurality of conditions; constructing a plurality of decision support models using the data, wherein each decision support model generates output comprising a plurality of real-time treatment options including statistical information for treating each of the plurality of conditions; providing patient features to the decision support model; matching said patient features to a corresponding condition of said plurality of conditions; presenting a subscriber with said plurality of real-time treatment options for treating the patient features, wherein upon selection by the subscriber of one of said plurality of real-time treatment options, the server further includes the steps of performing an outcome analysis for assessing a result of said selected treatment option, and automatically updating the statistical information of the treatment option using the result.
In another aspect of the present invention, a method of generating and providing treatment options and outcome analyses over a communication network is provided comprising the steps of filtering data from a plurality of remote databases and a local database; compiling said data in a server; providing the server with a plurality of conditions; constructing a decision support model using the data, wherein the decision support model generates output comprising a plurality of real-time treatment options including statistical information for treating each of the plurality of conditions; providing patient features to the decision support model; matching said patient features to a corresponding condition of said plurality of conditions; presenting a subscriber with said plurality of real-time treatment options for treating the patient features, wherein upon selection by the subscriber of one of said plurality of real-time treatment options, the server further includes the steps of performing an outcome analysis for assessing a result of said selected treatment option; and automatically updating the statistical information of the treatment option using the result.
These and other aspects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawing.